Although the concept of work being something you do rather than a place isn’t new, the events of 2020 made this more of a reality than ever before. The pandemic was the catalyst that enforced people to try new ways of working but the availability of robust networks, cloud computing and unified communications meant that many were surprised by how productive they could be outside of the traditional office. Inevitably there were challenges to overcome but in the significant majority of situations, communication was able to happen and work continued.
The baseline of this was voice communications. When the network is too congested for video or other distractions in the home such as children, pets and other family members working, voice proved it is still the default communications method. However, traditional telephony became more of a challenge as workers moved away from their office deskphone and calls were diverted to mobiles or softphones on their PCs.
These tools made it easy to locate and contact colleagues, but audio quality suffered as workers shouted at PC’s in-built microphones and strained to hear over puny integrated speakers. Rapidly, employees and employers grabbed what they could from online suppliers to add external microphones or headsets to enable better sound quality and privacy. However, this almost random approach was a sticking plaster rather than a cure, what’s needed now is a company-wide, professionalised approach to equipping workers.
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Judith Hogan[/caption]
High-quality speakerphones and headsets that include features such as noise cancellation and are provided by employers enable a standard set of capabilities to provide to workers and help ensure the company presents itself well over UC technology, both internally and to customers and partners. The era of solutions that were just good enough to get through the unexpected early phases of the pandemic is ending and being replaced by solutions for the longer term.
“At Poly, we’ve had an agile working policy for over a decade and that has enabled us to lead the market, developing beautifully engineered products, but COVID-19 is an unprecedented change,” says Judith Hogan, Director of Sales Acceleration at Poly.
“Hybrid working is now here to stay and has been stress tested globally. The just good enough environment which people scrambled to piece together with some fairly poor audio is ending.”
Hogan explains that poor audio means not only do workers miss key information, but they also suffer from audio fatigue as they strain to hear and participate in calls. “High-quality headsets mean you don’t need to move location to find that quiet spot to close an important million-dollar deal,” she adds.
